Author(s): Prasanta Basak
The paper analyses the parental view on the question that why they get their children admitted to school. The reasons that are considered by the parents in this respect are collected from a primary household sample survey conducted in four selected villages of Uttar Dinajpur district, West Bengal, India. The qualitative analysis shows that most of the children are getting enrolled in school considering their better future employment prospect. The second major reason that has been considered by the rural parents is that education will raise social status of the family. This social aspect is mostly associated with girls’ children. All the cited reasons when classified into economic and non-economic categories, produces an interesting result. Among the enrolled girl children (252 in total), 34.68% have been enrolled in school for the reasons associated with non-economic purpose. By using the Multinomial logit regression, the likelihood ratio test indicates that out of the seven independent variables- father educational level, Household dependency, Opportunity cost of schooling and Mothers’ empowerment have statistically significant relationship with the dependent variable, i.e., reason for enrollment decision. It is suggested that family planning, abolition of child labour and women empowerment may have positive result in enrolling the children in school